Waltzing Matilda an old cold case

Updated
Fri Feb 12 17:59:00 EST 2010

Photo

Banjo Paterson's lyrics are said to be a lament based on the 1894 shearers' strike.

A Melbourne barrister has questioned the results of an 1894 inquest into the shooting death of Samuel "Frenchy" Hoffmeister, the shearer who was reportedly the inspiration for the swagman character in Banjo Paterson's Waltzing Matilda.

Mr Hoffmeister was found dead, with a gunshot wound through the head from the mouth, at the Four Mile Billabong, near Kynuna in central Western Queensland, at the height of the bitter shearers' strike of 1894.

At the time, police alleged he was part of a gang of rebel shearers who, the previous night, had burned down a woolshed in a shootout at Dagworth Station, where scab labour was about to commence.

The inquest into Mr Hoffmeister's death was held only days after his body was found.

But according to Trevor Monti, who has spent considerable time reviewing the case, the wildly conflicting witness statements and the details of the police investigation throw into question the finding of suicide.

Mr Monti told ABC Radio National's Background Briefing program, the first of a two-part series called The Matilda Myth, that the investigation by Senior Constable Cafferty was "completely inadequate".

He described the explanations for Mr Hoffmeister's wounds as "controversial".

"About the only non-contested fact, I think, is the fact that Frenchy Hoffmeister was shot through the roof of the mouth, as a result of which he died," he said.

"What I think is significant is that this inquest is conducted three days after the death of Frenchy Hoffmeister, when these events should have been very fresh in the minds of those who were present in the union camp where he was found dead.

"For there to be such blatant discrepancies in the accounts given by various witnesses, is just amazing."

Mr Monti says the fact that Mr Hoffmeister was shot through the mouth, without other signs of a struggle, points to a death more akin to a Melbourne gangland assassination.

He says the police magistrates of the time were appointed from anywhere out of public life, oftentimes without much legal training.

"It's a little harsh to say that he may have been involved with the pastoralists, but they were turbulent times," he said.

"It may be the case that he was quite happy to have the death of Frenchy Hoffmeister put away as quickly as possible with a finding of suicide that would result in no further inquiry being made."

'Deep political allegory'

Writer Matthew Richardson says the song was most likely written as a carefully-worded political allegory to record and comment on the events of the shearers' strike.

"Paterson liked to use allegory," he said.

"He liked to put things in the voices of other people and so forth.

"But there's no doubt that he sympathised with the squatters, and there's no doubt that he sympathised with the swagman."

Emeritus Professor in history and politics at Queensland's Griffith University, Professor Ross Fitzgerald, adds weight to the claim.

"There seems to me no doubt that Waltzing Matilda wasn't just a little romantic ditty, it was a very deep, multi-faceted political allegory and lament," he said.

"It followed on directly from Banjo Paterson's first-hand account of what had happened in the 1894 shearers' strike in general, and what had happened specifically at the Dagworth Station, and he was aware of the suicide or murder of Frenchy Hoffmeister."

The two Matilda Myth programs, produced by documentary-maker Ian Walker, air this Sunday on Background Briefing at 9:00am and Hindsight at 2:00pm, ABC Radio National.